Katie, from Kitchen Stewardship, has done a great post about the new Dirty Dozen food list. This is a printable list naming the top 12 foods you should try to buy organic. These fruits and veggies are the ones with the highest pesticide residues at the grocery.
Make your organic purchases really count by using this list. You can download it at Katie’s.
Further Reading:
I got this recipe for crock pot yogurt at Nourishing Days. If you are interested in nourishing foods and wondering how they will fit into your life, this is the blog for you! Shannon makes healthy cooking easy and has great recipes.
Here is how my yogurt turned out:
It was thinner than store bought yogurt because it’s without any extra thickeners. I usually sweeten it with unsulfered molasses, pure maple syrup and pure vanilla extract. I also add a little water in it and we drink it like keiffer. I used these sweeteners because of their high iron and calcium content.
We only use cultured dairy and a little organic cheese. I just buy organic, lightly pasteurized milk at the store and make our own yogurt. I’d rather be using raw milk, but the culturing process adds back most of the enzymes and vitamins lost in the pasteurization process.
This is SO easy! You’ll have a lot of fun making this. I’ve made about 4 batches and it’s turned out great every time!
This is the time schedule that works well for us:
3:30 pm- pour the milk into the crock pot and cook it on low
6:00pm- turn off the heat and let it sit covered with the lid
9:00pm- stir in the 1/2 cup of yogurt and cover with towels
9:00am (the following morning)- take out 1/2 cup of yogurt to use next time, stir and and enjoy!
I also made yogurt cheese with one batch. It was so good that the kids and I dipped our veggies in it. Yum!
I laid a piece of cheesecloth over a mesh colander, put the colander into a large bowl and poured the yogurt over it. The whey drained out in a few hours and I was left with the yogurt cheese…so easy!
For more yogurt info be sure to stop by Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s blog. She just did a great post on yogurt and the comments people left were very informative and helpful.
If you’d like to learn more healthy recipes go to Fight Back Fridays at Food Renegade.
If you try making your own yogurt or have some tips to share, please comment below. I’d really like to hear what works for you!
I’ve been hearing a lot about using coupons to save money. However, when eating natural foods, coupons can be hard to come by!
After looking in the usual places like the Sunday paper and online coupon sites, try Ebay. You can search for “organic coupons” and you’ll be surprised at what you find! (You are paying them to “clip and ship” your coupons.) I’ve bought 20 $1.00 off coupons for as little as $2.50. I’m buying these products anyway…so I’m saving a lot of cash!
One of the best ways to find healthy and inexpensive food is to shop the edges of the store. After that, quickly go into the middle aisles for pantry staples. For foods like rice, beans, grains and spices, see if you can buy them in bulk.
Here’s what I bought on my last grocery trip…the total was $179.36. I think I did pretty well, since about 80% of these things are organic. These groceries, combined with food from the pantry and freezer, will feed us for about two weeks.
When you shop, look around for the mark-down areas. This week I found salad, artisan bread and milk on clearance; everything was in perfect shape and still in date.
I’m going to try making yogurt, for the first time, with the milk I bought. I’ll let you know how it turns out!
This is what works for me, but how do you save money on your groceries? Have you found any money saving blogs? Please share what you know so we can all feed our families frugally!
For further reading look at these posts:
